DAKAR, Senegal (New York Times) — Roughly 100 people have died after an explosion sent flames coursing through a gas station in the center of Accra, the Ghanaian capital, officials said on Thursday.
The explosion occurred Wednesday night while the station was packed with residents seeking shelter from knee-high water caused by days of torrential rain that flooded much of the city, officials said.
By Thursday morning, 108 bodies had been counted, Mayor Alfred Oko Vanderpuije of Accra said in a telephone interview from the capital.
“The area looked like a fire disaster zone. Everything has been burnt down,” said Mr. Vanderpuije, who added that he had visited the scene Thursday morning with Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama. “All the vehicles in the filling station have been burned. We saw bodies there. It’s a major disaster.”